Women Who Tech TeleSummit
I participated in my first webinar presentation yesterday, speaking on panel about Women in Open Source for the Women Who Tech TeleSummit. The TeleSummit was filled to capacity during pre-registration, and it was a real pleasure to "share the stage" along with folks like Arianna Huffington, Joan Blades and, of course, my co-panelist Michelle Murrain. Many many thanks to all of the organizers of this effort, especially Allyson Kapin simply because I worked with her most closely and can actually put a name to all the hard work. All audio from the conference was recorded and will be available from the conference website shortly.
I headed up to San Francisco for the TeleSummit after party along with the ever gracious Cat Allman, and had an absolute blast. So many cool people - women working as Database Engineers, Program Managers, Supply Chain Managers, Non-Profit Campaign Managers, ASIC Design Engineers, etc. Men were also present, clearly welcomed and were obviously there for the conversational benefits. I had a much better time at this shindig than many of the women tech events I've been to previously, so once again many kudos to the organizers.
Among the many great conversations had last night, one of the most enjoyable and useful was with Emily Logan, Campaign Manager for Care2. It was also her first webinar presentation, and I thought it might be helpful to pass along our collective thoughts on presenting in this format:
When presenting live, it's easy to tell how knowledgeable your audience is about a particular subject, either by simply asking them or keeping an eye out for tell tale blank stares. When presenting online, you get none of these body language cues and we didn't have the opportunity to assess the knowledge of our audience prior to beginning the panel discussion. Fortunately the presentation software we used allowed for online chat, so we could answer questions real time and also get a sense for when the audience members were confused. I think it would be useful to ensure that audience members are given some pre-requisites for attending your presentation, e.g. familiarity with Open Source terms such as Content Management System (CMS).
I try to minimize jargon whenever I'm speaking, but I was painfully aware how much of it creeps in during yesterday's presentation. Every time I said a term I was completely familiar with, e.g. Drupal or flame war, I found myself wondering if any of the women attending knew what the heck I was on about. Again I think that listing pre-requisites would be a good solution, but I'm confident given our online chat feedback that the talk was both well received and well tailored for our audience's needs.
It's also worthwhile to realize that this presentation style is going to be odd for you until you get some practice doing it. If you're used to engaging your audience through humor, you won't hear their laughter when their phone line is muted. The standard reaction for a presenter is to retool accordingly, but again you're in a medium without audience feedback and it is likely they're actually enjoying your jokes. Or at least so I'd like to think about my jokes. Being comfortable with not having the usual feedback cues from the audience is key to presenting online successfully, so just be aware it's going to feel odd at first and to just go with it.
I'm really pleased I got the opportunity to be a part of this event. I learned a great deal, met some fabulous folks and got to spread the Open Source love. I hope a few women listening were inspired to take the plunge into using it and contributing to it, and that even more will be when the audio is out there for all to benefit from. I didn't get a chance to sit in on any other sessions, but I'll definitely be catching up when the panels are out as podcasts.
I headed up to San Francisco for the TeleSummit after party along with the ever gracious Cat Allman, and had an absolute blast. So many cool people - women working as Database Engineers, Program Managers, Supply Chain Managers, Non-Profit Campaign Managers, ASIC Design Engineers, etc. Men were also present, clearly welcomed and were obviously there for the conversational benefits. I had a much better time at this shindig than many of the women tech events I've been to previously, so once again many kudos to the organizers.
Among the many great conversations had last night, one of the most enjoyable and useful was with Emily Logan, Campaign Manager for Care2. It was also her first webinar presentation, and I thought it might be helpful to pass along our collective thoughts on presenting in this format:
When presenting live, it's easy to tell how knowledgeable your audience is about a particular subject, either by simply asking them or keeping an eye out for tell tale blank stares. When presenting online, you get none of these body language cues and we didn't have the opportunity to assess the knowledge of our audience prior to beginning the panel discussion. Fortunately the presentation software we used allowed for online chat, so we could answer questions real time and also get a sense for when the audience members were confused. I think it would be useful to ensure that audience members are given some pre-requisites for attending your presentation, e.g. familiarity with Open Source terms such as Content Management System (CMS).
I try to minimize jargon whenever I'm speaking, but I was painfully aware how much of it creeps in during yesterday's presentation. Every time I said a term I was completely familiar with, e.g. Drupal or flame war, I found myself wondering if any of the women attending knew what the heck I was on about. Again I think that listing pre-requisites would be a good solution, but I'm confident given our online chat feedback that the talk was both well received and well tailored for our audience's needs.
It's also worthwhile to realize that this presentation style is going to be odd for you until you get some practice doing it. If you're used to engaging your audience through humor, you won't hear their laughter when their phone line is muted. The standard reaction for a presenter is to retool accordingly, but again you're in a medium without audience feedback and it is likely they're actually enjoying your jokes. Or at least so I'd like to think about my jokes. Being comfortable with not having the usual feedback cues from the audience is key to presenting online successfully, so just be aware it's going to feel odd at first and to just go with it.
I'm really pleased I got the opportunity to be a part of this event. I learned a great deal, met some fabulous folks and got to spread the Open Source love. I hope a few women listening were inspired to take the plunge into using it and contributing to it, and that even more will be when the audio is out there for all to benefit from. I didn't get a chance to sit in on any other sessions, but I'll definitely be catching up when the panels are out as podcasts.
Labels: conferences, work
posted by Leslie Hawthorn at 2:47 PM
2 Comments:
Leslie, great points about adjusting to webinar presentations. Thanks for participating in the Women Who Tech TeleSummit. It was so great to have you as a panelist. And for the record I did laugh at your jokes even though you could not hear me . :)
- Allyson
Great post! I thought more afterward about our shared reluctance to interject jokes into the presentation for fear of red-faced, involuntary humility. :) But the clear benefit of this format is that it opens the door for so many people to participate, which was one of the most exciting things for me. Pleasure!
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